UFO answers coming soon?
Could the world soon be getting answers to its burning UFO questions? In December 2020, U.S. senator Marco Rubio asked the Pentagon to investigate UFOs, or UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena), as they’ve been rebranded in U.S. military jargon. With the help of the Senate Intelligence Committee, his request called for an unclassified report on everything government agencies know about UAPs within six months. That includes the scores of unusual sightings reported by military pilots. And the six-month stretch is almost up. The report is due sometime in June 2021, and Rubio seems eager to see it.
In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes reporter, Bill Whitaker, Rubio said:
I want us to take it seriously and have a process to take it seriously. I want us to have a process to analyze the data every time it comes in; that there be a place where this is cataloged and constantly analyzed until we get some answers. Maybe it has a very simple answer. Maybe it doesn’t.
It’s in the nature of scientific thought that hypotheticals – for example, “UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft” – require proof. And, so far, there is no generally accepted scientific proof that aliens from other planets have traveled across the vastness of space to visit Earth. Astronomers know that the vast majority of UFO sightings aren’t “unidentified” at all. They stem from people’s lack of knowledge about the night sky. Many report the brightest planet, Venus, as a UFO, for example.
On the other hand, many have seen viral videos of the common UAP encounters with U.S. Navy pilots over the past few years. In these videos, some UAPs even appear faster and more maneuverable than the newest, most advanced aircraft in America’s military fleet. One of the most popularized examples was nicknamed the “Tic Tac.” In that 2004 video, the recording of a tiny, agile, ellipse-shaped UAP was apparently taken aboard a Navy fighter jet from the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Like the other videos featured on May 17’s episode of 60 Minutes, its authenticity has been confirmed by Pentagon officials.
So what is Tic Tac? It was just one of three UAPs caught on video that Christopher Mellon – who served as U.S. defense secretary for intelligence – declassified for the New York Times. In 2017, after he had left his position with the government, the Times then published a blockbuster story about the videos. It also reported on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a Pentagon project tasked with investigating such sightings. Mellon told 60 Minutes that he took these steps out of concern that not enough was being done to investigate.
He said to Whitaker:
It’s bizarre and unfortunate that someone like myself has to do something like that to get a national security issue like this on the agenda.
Rubio added:
Anything that enters an airspace that’s not supposed to be there is a threat.
A threat to national security?
It’s possible that the reported UAPs are some kind of advanced aircraft developed by an adversary nation such as Russia or China. In that case, they really are a threat to national security. However, experts have also suggested that the sightings might arise from issues with the Navy jets’ instruments (although pilots report seeing the UAPs with the unaided eye as well).
Lue Elizondo – a former military intelligence officer – emphasized how the subject of UAPs or UFOs has gone from frivolous to serious inquiry. According to the Washington Post, Elizondo was involved in a secret Department of Defense meeting held in the Capitol building. He runs the unit that later emerged from the meeting, called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. Its mission “is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security,” according to the Pentagon.
Elizondo said in an interview with the Post:
We are now relying on military and intelligence-collection capabilities to collect the data and then try to interpret the data. This is not a conversation about how grandma saw some lights in the backyard and then people wind up scratching their heads wondering what it was … We’re seeing these things on a daily basis. The longer we keep a lid on it, the more problematic it becomes. It actually works against our interests to keep a cork on this.
At the very least, people like Rubio, Mellon, and Elizondo say they hope that an explanation will shut down any threats, if those threats are indeed from earthly nations, not other worlds.
And in the meantime, other ex-government officials have been talking. Late last year, former CIA director John Brennan, appearing on a podcast hosted by George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen, said:
It’s a bit presumptuous and arrogant for us to believe that there’s no other form of life anywhere in the entire universe … I’ve seen some of those videos from Navy pilots, and I must tell you that they are quite eyebrow-raising when you look at them. I think some of the phenomena we’re going to be seeing continues to be unexplained and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon that is the result of something that we don’t yet understand and that could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.
Moreover, he said the U.S. can’t afford to wait any longer to start taking these encounters seriously. But for some Washington officials, it’s complicated. Many are still unwilling to publicly discuss UAPs. Senator Mark R. Warner, current head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined an interview request. His spokeswoman simply said:
We won’t have a comment on this.
Bottom line: In December 2020, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio asked the Pentagon to investigate UFOs, or UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena), as they’ve been rebranded in U.S. military jargon. With the help of the Senate Intelligence Committee, his request called for an unclassified report on everything government agencies know about UAPs within six months. Now the time is up, and the report is due in June 2021.
Read more from EarthSky about Starlink: What is that?!
Read more from EarthSky: Is That A UFO?! There’s Probably An Explanation
The post U.S. Pentagon to produce UFO answers next month first appeared on EarthSky.
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UFO answers coming soon?
Could the world soon be getting answers to its burning UFO questions? In December 2020, U.S. senator Marco Rubio asked the Pentagon to investigate UFOs, or UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena), as they’ve been rebranded in U.S. military jargon. With the help of the Senate Intelligence Committee, his request called for an unclassified report on everything government agencies know about UAPs within six months. That includes the scores of unusual sightings reported by military pilots. And the six-month stretch is almost up. The report is due sometime in June 2021, and Rubio seems eager to see it.
In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes reporter, Bill Whitaker, Rubio said:
I want us to take it seriously and have a process to take it seriously. I want us to have a process to analyze the data every time it comes in; that there be a place where this is cataloged and constantly analyzed until we get some answers. Maybe it has a very simple answer. Maybe it doesn’t.
It’s in the nature of scientific thought that hypotheticals – for example, “UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft” – require proof. And, so far, there is no generally accepted scientific proof that aliens from other planets have traveled across the vastness of space to visit Earth. Astronomers know that the vast majority of UFO sightings aren’t “unidentified” at all. They stem from people’s lack of knowledge about the night sky. Many report the brightest planet, Venus, as a UFO, for example.
On the other hand, many have seen viral videos of the common UAP encounters with U.S. Navy pilots over the past few years. In these videos, some UAPs even appear faster and more maneuverable than the newest, most advanced aircraft in America’s military fleet. One of the most popularized examples was nicknamed the “Tic Tac.” In that 2004 video, the recording of a tiny, agile, ellipse-shaped UAP was apparently taken aboard a Navy fighter jet from the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Like the other videos featured on May 17’s episode of 60 Minutes, its authenticity has been confirmed by Pentagon officials.
So what is Tic Tac? It was just one of three UAPs caught on video that Christopher Mellon – who served as U.S. defense secretary for intelligence – declassified for the New York Times. In 2017, after he had left his position with the government, the Times then published a blockbuster story about the videos. It also reported on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a Pentagon project tasked with investigating such sightings. Mellon told 60 Minutes that he took these steps out of concern that not enough was being done to investigate.
He said to Whitaker:
It’s bizarre and unfortunate that someone like myself has to do something like that to get a national security issue like this on the agenda.
Rubio added:
Anything that enters an airspace that’s not supposed to be there is a threat.
A threat to national security?
It’s possible that the reported UAPs are some kind of advanced aircraft developed by an adversary nation such as Russia or China. In that case, they really are a threat to national security. However, experts have also suggested that the sightings might arise from issues with the Navy jets’ instruments (although pilots report seeing the UAPs with the unaided eye as well).
Lue Elizondo – a former military intelligence officer – emphasized how the subject of UAPs or UFOs has gone from frivolous to serious inquiry. According to the Washington Post, Elizondo was involved in a secret Department of Defense meeting held in the Capitol building. He runs the unit that later emerged from the meeting, called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. Its mission “is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security,” according to the Pentagon.
Elizondo said in an interview with the Post:
We are now relying on military and intelligence-collection capabilities to collect the data and then try to interpret the data. This is not a conversation about how grandma saw some lights in the backyard and then people wind up scratching their heads wondering what it was … We’re seeing these things on a daily basis. The longer we keep a lid on it, the more problematic it becomes. It actually works against our interests to keep a cork on this.
At the very least, people like Rubio, Mellon, and Elizondo say they hope that an explanation will shut down any threats, if those threats are indeed from earthly nations, not other worlds.
And in the meantime, other ex-government officials have been talking. Late last year, former CIA director John Brennan, appearing on a podcast hosted by George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen, said:
It’s a bit presumptuous and arrogant for us to believe that there’s no other form of life anywhere in the entire universe … I’ve seen some of those videos from Navy pilots, and I must tell you that they are quite eyebrow-raising when you look at them. I think some of the phenomena we’re going to be seeing continues to be unexplained and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon that is the result of something that we don’t yet understand and that could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.
Moreover, he said the U.S. can’t afford to wait any longer to start taking these encounters seriously. But for some Washington officials, it’s complicated. Many are still unwilling to publicly discuss UAPs. Senator Mark R. Warner, current head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined an interview request. His spokeswoman simply said:
We won’t have a comment on this.
Bottom line: In December 2020, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio asked the Pentagon to investigate UFOs, or UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena), as they’ve been rebranded in U.S. military jargon. With the help of the Senate Intelligence Committee, his request called for an unclassified report on everything government agencies know about UAPs within six months. Now the time is up, and the report is due in June 2021.
Read more from EarthSky about Starlink: What is that?!
Read more from EarthSky: Is That A UFO?! There’s Probably An Explanation
The post U.S. Pentagon to produce UFO answers next month first appeared on EarthSky.
from EarthSky https://ift.tt/34xgRBP
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